This invention relates to a method for analyzing data provided by Magnetic Resonance Imaging with dynamic administration of contrast medium (DCE-MRI) in patients with locally advanced rectal cancer, after neoadjuvant radio-chemotherapy. The DCE-MRI consists in acquiring a tumour volume before, during and after the administration of a contrast medium and in the subsequent assessment of the Time-Intensity curves (TIC), obtained as mean value over time of the grey level of a region of interest segmented by an expert radiologist.
Despite the efforts made to introduce and extend screening programs, rectal cancer is often fatal because it is diagnosed in a locally advanced stage of the illness.
The reduction of the tumour after neoadjuvant radio-chemotherapy (CRT) has been considered an important prognostic factor which involves the probability of a relapse and survival free of illness.
Nevertheless, a favourable answer to radio-chemotherapy treatment cannot always be associated with an appreciable reduction of tumour volume, including because it is often hard to distinguish between fibrosis and tumour residue.
Consequently, morphologic Magnetic Resonance Imaging is often not conclusive in discriminating between persons who fully respond to neoadjuvant CRT, persons who respond partially and persons who do not respond.
For this reason, currently, the tendency is to use DCE-MRI associated with a quality type approach of Time-Intensity curves.
In practice, for this type of approach, the operator visually assesses the pattern of the TIC obtained from the images provided by the DCE-MRI.
Although this method is potentially successful in detecting post-CRT tumour residues, it is by its nature subjective, inasmuch as it depends on the individual capacity and preparation of the person who “reads” the data provided by the DCE-MRI.